This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

Facebook will soon disclose who uploaded custom audience information, Google+’s shut down date has been confirmed and Messages can now be unsent in Messenger.

Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.

Facebook will reveal who uploaded ad targeting information

From February 28, the ‘Why am I seeing this?’ button on Facebook ads will not only reveal which brand has paid for the ad but who uploaded your contact information and when it was uploaded. A spokesperson for Facebook stated that the goal of this update is to give people a better understanding of how advertisers use their information.

YouTube is expanding the test of its Content Discovery tool

YouTube is expanding the test of its explore feature to new devices including iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets and desktops. The feature isn’t dissimilar to Instagram’s Explore page which allows users to find new content based on accounts they follow. The new YouTube feature aims to “introduce users to a diverse set of personalised content.”

Facebook budget optimisation is coming to campaigns

Campaign budget optimisation has been available since 2017. It allows Facebook’s algorithm to optimise the budget across all ad sets. Now Facebook has announced that as of September 2019, all new and existing campaigns will automatically be budget optimised and advertisers will not be able to turn it off.

Google has given Google+ its expiration date

Google announced in October last year that they would be shutting down Google+ for consumers by August 2019. When the privacy bug surfaced, they announced that they would expedite the closure to the end of April 2019. Google has now confirmed that Google+ will now be shut down on April 2nd.

You can now delete sent messages in Messenger

We’ve all sent a message and instantly wanted to delete it from our device, forgetting it was ever crafted. Messenger has announced that they’re finally rolling out the ability to delete messages after they’ve been sent. There’s a catch, messages will only be able to be deleted for up to 10 minutes after they were sent.

This week’s 5 most important social media changes

What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?

This week we’re saying goodbye to Google+, exploring ‘Snap Originals’ through VR and taking a look at 3D photos on Facebook. All that and more in this week’s Platform Five.

Instagram is testing tapping instead of scrolling through posts

Instagram is “always testing ways to improve the experience on [the platform].” Their newest test will see users tapping their way through the explore page, as they do for Stories, instead of scrolling. There’s no confirmation as to if or when they’d introduce the same change to the main newsfeed.

Facebook is rolling out 3D photos

Announced back at their F8 conference in May, Facebook has begun rolling out 3D photos which work by adding depth to your portrait mode photos. Everyone can now view 3D photos in their feed but the ability to create them is still being rolled out which will happen over the coming weeks.

Google is shutting down Google+ for consumers

Google+ is being shut down for consumers, not that anyone will really miss it. The final nail in the coffin was not the lack of engagement on the platform but a security breach that exposed up to 500,000 Google+ accounts to unauthorised users.

Snapchat introduces ‘Snap Originals’

Snap Originals are exclusive shows “created by some of the world’s greatest storytellers” that will only be accessible through the Snapchat platform. Exclusive content is not new to Snapchat but this will be the first time users will be able to experience the scenes in VR.

Facebook is releasing a first-party cookie option

As of October 24, publishers, advertisers, and developers will be able to use first-party cookies for ads. Advertisers will have the option of choosing first or third party cookies but it’s recommended that they choose first-party so they can “reach more customers and be more accurate in measurement reporting.”